Boston Globe Editorial - Shameful old CIA secrets
Boston Globe Editorial - Shameful old CIA secrets
Copyright by The Boston Globe
Published: June 12, 2006
A striking example of the need to keep government from hiding matters that have lost their security sensitivity was on view last week when the CIA, bowing to a 1998 federal law mandating such disclosures, released 27,000 pages of previously classified material documenting how, after World War II , U.S. intelligence agencies shielded Adolf Eichmann and other Nazi war criminals. The declassified documents contain secrets that were hidden from view not because they might endanger national security, but because they cast shame on governments past.
In 1958, when West German intelligence notified the CIA that Eichmann was living in Argentina, CIA officials declined to inform Israel. The reason for this betrayal came to light in 1960, after Israeli agents captured Eichmann and took him to Israel to be put on trial. To pay Eichmann's legal fees, his family sold his memoirs to Life magazine. The West German government feared the memoirs would mention Eichmann's mentor, Dr. Hans Globke. One of the senior Nazis who landed on his feet after the war, Globke had become director of the Federal Chancellery and served as Chancellor Konrad Adenauer's principal go- between with U.S. intelligence.
One of the old CIA documents made public last week at the National Archives is a memo from then-CIA director Allen Dulles noting that the agency had read the Eichmann memoirs and found a mention of Globke "which Life omitting at our request." In hiding Globke's past, the agency was protecting an author of the Third Reich's infamous Nuremberg Laws.
Copyright by The Boston Globe
Published: June 12, 2006
A striking example of the need to keep government from hiding matters that have lost their security sensitivity was on view last week when the CIA, bowing to a 1998 federal law mandating such disclosures, released 27,000 pages of previously classified material documenting how, after World War II , U.S. intelligence agencies shielded Adolf Eichmann and other Nazi war criminals. The declassified documents contain secrets that were hidden from view not because they might endanger national security, but because they cast shame on governments past.
In 1958, when West German intelligence notified the CIA that Eichmann was living in Argentina, CIA officials declined to inform Israel. The reason for this betrayal came to light in 1960, after Israeli agents captured Eichmann and took him to Israel to be put on trial. To pay Eichmann's legal fees, his family sold his memoirs to Life magazine. The West German government feared the memoirs would mention Eichmann's mentor, Dr. Hans Globke. One of the senior Nazis who landed on his feet after the war, Globke had become director of the Federal Chancellery and served as Chancellor Konrad Adenauer's principal go- between with U.S. intelligence.
One of the old CIA documents made public last week at the National Archives is a memo from then-CIA director Allen Dulles noting that the agency had read the Eichmann memoirs and found a mention of Globke "which Life omitting at our request." In hiding Globke's past, the agency was protecting an author of the Third Reich's infamous Nuremberg Laws.
posted by Carlos T Mock at 1:12 PM
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